Sep 04 2018
Since June 1 of this year, and through October 28, the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford have been displaying an extraordinary selection of items from their Tolkien collection. The original map of the Lonely Mountain, complete with pointing hand and runic inscription. Watercolors by Tolkien of Hobbiton, of Bilbo’s conversation with Smaug, of the Eagles, of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/09/04/tolkien-maker-of-middle-earth/
Aug 30 2018
With his trilogy about a darkly magical California — California Bones, Pacific Fire, and Dragon Coast — Greg van Eekhout has created an interesting world that puts wizards and fantastic creatures into a roughly contemporary setting and spun exciting stories of adventure among the people who shape that world. Earth is home to many magical creatures, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/30/dragon-coast-by-greg-van-eekhout/
Aug 28 2018
Why was Raising Steam, the penultimate Discworld novel, so much better than I expected? I had reason to worry. It clocks in at 475 pages, and for the last 10 books, I have much preferred the shorter ones to the longer ones. Both of Raising Steam‘s immediate non-YA predecessors, Unseen Academicals and Snuff, had seemed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/28/raising-steam-by-terry-pratchett/
Aug 23 2018
Snuff, the thirty-ninth Discworld book, turns out to be the last one starring Sam Vimes, who has gone a long way in the world since his first appearance in Guards! Guards! There will be one more Moist van Lipwig book, one more Tiffany Aching book (although I am still drafting my thoughts on I Shall …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/23/snuff-by-terry-pratchett/
Aug 14 2018
Isn’t it great when the last in a set of books is the best of the bunch? Not only is Fiddlehead, the fifth of Cherie Priest‘s Clockwork Century novels, easily the best of the series, it’s terrific fun from start to finish, a page-turner in the best sense of the word. It races from tension-filled …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/14/fiddlehead-by-cherie-priest/
Aug 13 2018
One of the hard problems of writing far-future science fiction is just how strange humans of that era are likely to appear to present-day readers. Quite apart from the changes that technology and any move of setting from the terrestrial are likely to bring, the ways that societies change over time are likely to render …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/13/too-like-the-lightning-by-ada-palmer/
Aug 12 2018
One of the niftier things that Cory Doctorow does in Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom is to show a basically sympathetic character making a series of bad decisions for reasons that I, as a reader, could understand why he was taking those actions but I wished he wouldn’t and hoped he would figure …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/12/down-out-in-the-magic-kingdom-by-cory-doctorow/
Aug 12 2018
Sometimes an author is much more interested in a major character than I am. Writing about Raven Stratagem, the second book in the Machineries of Empire series, I already noted that Lee’s interest in writing about Shuos Jedao was starting to exceed my desire to read more about him. Revelations late in the book showed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/12/revenant-gun-by-yoon-ha-lee/
Aug 05 2018
In John Sclazi’s first series of science fiction novels, Old Man’s War and its several sequels and companion volumes, the Milky Way near earth (well, near in interstellar terms) teems with life and spacefaring civilizations. Humanity has to make its way in a galactic neighborhood that’s full of life, and nearly as full of war. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/05/the-collapsing-empire-by-john-scalzi/
Aug 04 2018
When the first character a book introduces is a boy named Isaac, and the two adults closest to him in the odd collective where he is growing up are Avram (Dr. Avram Dvali) and Mrs. Rebka, even this heathen knows the book is going to be about encounters with transcendence and possible sacrifices. Axis is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/04/axis-by-robert-charles-wilson/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire